Name's Jason Thibeault. I'm an IT guy, skeptic, feminist, gamer and atheist, and love OSS, science of all stripes (especially space-related stuff), and debating on-line and off. I enjoy a good bit of whargarbl now and again, and will occasionally even seek it out. I am also apparently responsible for the death of common sense on the internet. My bad.

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EVENTS

On needing a vacation from my vacation

So I’ve been pretty crap at updating the blog despite my earlier intimation that I would. In my defense, it’s been a busy first week of my vacation. First, we visited Pickles and Lisa on my first Saturday night for booze and Wii playing, which was fun as always. We left a bit earlier than usual, hoping to beat the weather home, and we did.

However, the next day, there was a roughly 9-hour power outage in the middle of the continuing bit of cold weather, during which I not only had to barbecue water in order to make tea (and provide heat for Jodi’s snake), but also had to walk the new guy at the other site through bringing his office back up from their own power outages. Nothing like walking people through dealing with getting power back, when you have no power of your own.
The walkthroughs continued once or twice every day except on Christmas proper, but that’s okay, that’s part of having a “working vacation”. It might be nice to have a full, real vacation sometime of course (Georgia was fun and all, but a bit outside my comfort zone to truly relax, so another real vacation involving no Blackberry and no contact from the work world sure would be nice), but now’s obviously not the best time to try for such a thing. I’d rather just do everything in my power to keep the newbie from going running screaming into the night, since I have a great deal of sympathy for the predicament he’s in. As long as he tries hard, I’ll make sure he gets a fair shake at the job. And if he does flee, there’s always the possibility of convincing Clifton to actually apply early enough this time around.

Christmas Eve we went to visit Sara and Mark and partake in a glorious feast of random nibbles and assorted sundries, none of which traditional by any stretch of the imagination — miniature Acadian meat pies, Chinese foods of several varieties, veggie and fruit platters, pepperoni and cheese, homemade chocolate truffles, and I left quite well fed. I also got to try a non-Rickards Honey Brown, which I believe was Sleemans, but memory fails now. It was excellent — perhaps better even than Rickards. And I’m most assuredly not a beer person so that means something.

We opened our gifts that night rather than waiting for the next morning, knowing that we were expected to visit Jodi’s family up on the mountain. I got her Tomb Raider: Underworld for the Wii (beautiful and fun game so far, but maybe a few too many glitches for my tastes — seems to have been rushed somewhat in the Wii port), as well as two Richard Dawkins books and a new showerhead for the ensuite shower (she had been complaining that the one that came with the place was too focused and thus too painful to use). She got me a Princess Bride book calendar (which is gorgeous), a micro-SD for my Blackberry so I can actually use its media features and carry my music library around with me on something other than my work’s laptop, and a huge book on how to build arcade cabinets — anyone who knows me knows this is one of my most long-standing dreams and that I will likely need every bit of assistance and encouragement I can get in carrying it out.

On Christmas Day we, as stated earlier, visited with Jodi’s family, and partook in easily the biggest Christmas feast I’ve ever had (save of course for last year’s, where we did the same thing). We exchanged presents with Jodi’s mother, where we got her a wifi USB dongle that evidently does not work (which I plan on rectifying the next time we visit), and some framed pictures for her house, and she in return got us a miniature hydroponic herb garden kit. The cost differential there is obvious, and I feel horrible that we didn’t get her the battery for her laptop, but that laptop’s battery is evidently not being manufactured any more. We can get her old one refurbished though, which I intend on doing. I’d also like to get her a PCMCIA wireless card as opposed to the USB one — I’ll take the USB one back and can probably use it on my arcade machine, should that project ever start coming together. The computer and monitor are ready, but controls and frame haven’t even been thought about recently — this should change in the near future, hopefully, with the new book to help me along.

Boxing Day we relaxed a bit, made a small ham roast and shared it with Jodi’s mother, and played a good bit of Tomb Raider. The day after Boxing Day though, we went shopping, much like pretty well the rest of the Valley. Got a new coffee table and over-the-oven microwave, socks and underwear for both of us (is it telling that neither of us ever bother to buy new socks and underwear until it’s absolutely necessary?), and had Abby (YAY ABBY!) over for movies, tea and garlic fingers. She’s in better health than I’ve seen her recently, but as always, a little on the stressed side. I think the woman can only function properly when at an ulcer-inducing level of stress though, and she seems to be every bit the workaholic that I am, so I can’t in good conscience criticize her. Jodi finished building the coffee table while she was here, and after she left, I finished mounting the microwave to the wall. Pictures will be forthcoming (they’re taken, just not transferred to the computer yet).

Yesterday we went to the Museum of Natural History in Halifax with Mark and Sara, which was a good bit of fun as well. The trip didn’t do my back any favors though, and I’ve been nursing it since in order to keep from a full-blown resurgence of sciatica. Today’s the first day that we did absolutely nothing special (save for a bit of much-needed cleaning up). And unfortunately it looks like the rest of the week will be relatively plan-less, as Jodi’s working for much of it.

I have a project that I’ve been working on lately that I want to blog about, but I haven’t really had much time to devote to it lately so right now it’s not at the place where I need it to be. As soon as it is though (and that may well be tomorrow, where Jodi will be away and I have no obligations), I’ll be posting it. As a teaser, I’ll tell you now that it has to do with Python programming, and evolution. Sorta. And you’ll be getting source code for it. Gotta use that “code” CSS I added to this template sometime, ya know?